Lessons I learnt from life.

Chapter 23: From small moments.

From small moments

I can't believe that it's been a long time since I wrote here. The last I wrote was about 2020. I have learned a lot in these two years. Well...it's only been 5 months to 2022 though.  And I am not here to share a lesson and then disappear for months to come. I will definitely do that (write a lesson I mean) but first, I am going to give you a little update about my life. I feel like it's only fair after having shared so much in the previous entries about my life. 

Firstly, I would like to say that I started writing this book in 2016. I was 19 yrs old and this year I am 25. It's a huge difference. A lot can happen in 7 years and I have shared with you all whatever that I have thought was worth sharing. I am an optimist and I love doing what I do. I love igniting the lamp of hope in people and that was the sole purpose of this book. Every entry that you might read from the beginning to this will only have a positive outlook on life. You may think how is it even possible for a person to think & reflect on life with so much hope and positivity?  Heck, I could even shred some positive outlook on a year like 2020! And I admire my 2016 self so much, I went and read all those entries myself and I thought to myself about how different I am from who I was when I wrote that. I felt like a hypocrite because when I went back and read some of my entries where I wrote things like..."Don't be an emotional fool and mistake kindness for love"...(when in fact I end up doing exactly that) I couldn't help but admire my 2016 self who had a great outlook and vision of life than I do at my big age of 25. If you ever thought maturity or a rational mind comes with age then you are most definitely wrong. I want to become my 19 yr self once again, strong-headed and full of courage and hope. Who needed no one and was on her own, determined to win at life and onto greater things in life!  

As I read my previous entries, I also realized that I have often written about my father but not my mother, and when I said a lot has happened from 2020 to 2022, I didn't just say it. I meant it. I have realized that often in the mourning of what we have lost, we forget to appreciate what we have, of what's present. This year, it's going to be 8 years since my father's death and eid was just 5 days ago. After the eid prayer, we went to his grave. I feel like before seeing his nameplate, even when I knew he was dead, I didn't fully come to accept that he was gone until I saw his name written on his grave. And the realization that even though it is his grave, he's not really in there. That I can't remove all the sand and pebbles from the grave with my bare hands and hug his corpse. It's been 8 years, whatever is left behind in it are his bones. I stared so long and hard at his name written on the plate because I wanted that image to be imprinted on my mind. I felt like that was the moment of my acceptance that he is indeed not here. Can you believe it took me 8 years to accept it? I feel like before this experience I was living life in a delusion that he isn't dead but is living somewhere far away from us because a majority of my life we have lived like that. Him in Bahrain, working for us, and us in India, studying. 

Last year, when I spoke about my father to someone, I mentioned him in the present tense. And then it hit me that even my subconscious can't speak about him in the past. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I haven't fully accepted his death, him not being here with us. Him not coming back at all. I have written about him countless times I think I started doing that as a way of coping with my grief because when he died, my mother wasn't in her senses to make decisions or think about anything. She was grieving and I had to take a stand and take care of all my siblings. I did not have the time to sit and wail and let it out of my system or even come to terms with the fact that he is gone. So, I moved on as if he were there but just far away so I was the one responsible for everything. Sometimes...very randomly it would hit that he's not here and I'd cry missing him incredibly. Sometimes I hate the fact that I can only see him in my dreams. But, what else can I do, you know? This is life.